


Sun and Moon

by EternalHope7



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Attempted Kidnapping, Blood and Injury, Bloodbending (Avatar), Child Abuse, Dark, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Fear of Discovery, Firebending & Firebenders, Gen, Grooming, Hama Is Her Own Warning, Hatred, Murder, Possessive Behavior, Self-Hatred, Torture, Unhealthy Relationships, Waterbending & Waterbenders
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-21
Packaged: 2021-03-26 21:35:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30112380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EternalHope7/pseuds/EternalHope7
Summary: When Ozai threatens to cast their first child to his death, Ursa takes Zuko and runs.The Yuyan archers he sends after her have only one order.Hama finds a dead woman and her barely living child. He has firebender eyes.
Relationships: Hama & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 71





	1. Hama

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning - this is dark.  
> Look at those tags!  
> D-a-r-k!  
> D.A.R.K.

The moon lights her path when she finds them. A thin body curled around a small bundle. Hama uses her foot to turn the corpse to its back. The woman is tall and beautiful. Hama sneers. Her pretty face didn't stop the arrow through her heart. The bundle squirms - she senses the living water then. The woman kneels to pick it up and unfolds thick red fabric.

A baby. Pale as its mother. She tugs the cloth a touch lower - a male. The little creature stirs in her grasp then and opens _golden_ eyes. Hama nearly drops the thing. She's seen eyes like those. Seen them through the bars of her cage. _Firebender_. The horrid little thing whimpers at her tightening grip and tears run down its cheeks. The woman bends the water and considers cutting the thing's throat. It would be a quick death. Faster than any of her brothers and sisters had been given.

Pale moonlight glints off its eyes. She... pauses. Watches the strange color. Hama looks to the moon. It's full tonight. She can almost hear the lapping of the ocean against ice. She lets the water she's holding drop away. The moon has guided her here, but why? To snuff out a small flame before it catches and roars - burning away at the world?

Or.

Its eyes. They had shone in the light of the moon, just for a second. Tui. A... gift? If so, what for? Hama looks to the moon for answers and finds only silence. _If_ it is a gift then she dare not kill it. She will wait, then. Take the thing and see what comes of it. If it is not a gift then she will simply get rid of it. Hama covers the thing with its red blanket and holds it close. She turns and leaves the woman's corpse where it lies. Some lucky animal will eat well tonight.


	2. Hama

Hama doesn't even need to lie to the villagers when she arrives "home". _Home is far away. She cannot return until the war is over and the Fire Nation is dead._ By the next morning she has more baby gifts and clothes then she honestly knows what to do with. The older women coo over the creature and the men set up patrols to guard the village. She pretends at grief for the dead woman and saddened joy for the baby. Caring for it is... a challenge. Before her capture motherhood had been a distant thing, something that would happen when she found the right man. Her years of captivity had scorched away any thought of children. She does not know what to do with a child. A few little lies and whispered "confessions" of "conditions" wins her the support of the women who live closest to her. They pass down their wisdom of how to care for the young and Hama uses their lessons to keep the creature alive. The villagers pester her for a name. She waves them off and ignores their tutting.

With time the excitement over her new little arrival calms down. She no longer needs the whispered advice of the women on how to raise the thing. It is another full moon when Hama finally decides on what to name it. She looks into small firebender eyes and thinks of her true home. The raids had been tenacious. Never ending. The people of the Fire Nation have a will that must be smothered in ice if the world ever wants true peace. Still. She sits back and looks out her window. Watches as clouds briefly obscure the moon. That unending will. What if her own people had possessed that blazing determination? What if-? She looks down at the creature. Its bright eyes meet hers. What if they had had their own firebender? What if fire had fought fire? She _sees_ it then. The child, grown. He stands before her and turns away the flames of her enemies as she freezes them in place. The firebenders will never suspect one of their own - they will never see it coming. Hama smiles down at the young child in her arms. They will do great things together. They will bring glory to the Southern Water tribe by destroying its enemies from the inside out. Glory to Lui and La, she prays, for turning the enemy's strength against themselves. It has always been their way and she will honor it.

"Zuko," she speaks the child's new name aloud. He will be her perfect weapon.


	3. Hama

She studies and works to improve her own bending as the boy grows. Just like with the rats, water lies in other places. She picks hidden spots far from their home to practice pulling water from living things. Plants wither and crumple while trees break apart, yet she knows she still has more to learn. The full moons and passing wanderers give her more opportunities. Hama takes her time with each and then discards them afterward. She never wastes her time with graves - none deserve the compassion of a burial.

While Zuko toddles behind her on market trips, his eyes large and watchful, she considers him. He is still too young to train, and then there's the matter of his fire bending. Some day he will need to know how to control flames and she... She doesn't know how to guide him in that regard. The village has a small school for benders but she will won't let him go there. They would teach him the moves that his people had used to destroy hers. He will never use them. _Never_. While the people of the village will never understand her desire to keep him away from traditional forms, they don't need to. She only needs to convince Zuko.

So Hama does. Her little living gift is the only one who knows the truth about her, about what and who she is. The woman raises him with tales of what the Fire Nation _truly_ is. Monsters. Murderers. Enslavers. Torturers. Yes, she assures him when he asks if those in their village are like that. Every Fire Nation citizen is merely a creature pretending at common human decency and friendship. They wear their masks so well, but Hama knows what they are and are not. They are _not_ people.

"Am I monster too?" Zuko asks her as he looks down at his own small hands. He looks worried, as if he thinks claws could sprout from his finger tips at any second.

"No, Zuko," Hama assures him. He would have been one, she tells him, if not for the intervention of the moon. "Tui saved you from your kind and gave you to me." He gives a relieved smile at her words. 


End file.
